Party Mix

Last night over at Mocha Mornings I blogged about the treats I made for the kids' teachers for Halloween.  The jars turned out super cute and it was such an easy project for a person, like myself, who is not that crafty.  As promised here is the recipe I used to make the party mix that I gifted. While you're here feel free to hop on over to Mocha Mornings and check out my jars! :)

PRINTABLE VERSION
You will need:
3 cups Corn Chex Mix
3 cups Rice Chex Mix
3 cups Wheat Chex Mix
1 cup Cheerios
1 cup Raisins
1 to 2 cups pretzel sticks
*2 cups candy corn (M&M's are good too)
1 cup nuts (optional)
1 stick of butter
6 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons seasoned salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 large turkey size cooking bag

*do not bake candy. This is added after the mixture has baked and has cooled.

What to do:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
1.  In the large cooking bag mix the cereals, raisins, pretzels and optional nuts; set aside.  In a small microwavable bowl, microwave the butter until melted.  Add the Worcestershire and seasonings and stir.  Pour over cereal mixture in the bag and mix until evenly coated.  (I twist the top of the bag and toss mixture until coated).
2.  After mixture is coated pour into a large un-greased roasting pan.  Place in oven and bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.  After mix is finished removed from oven and allow to cool, about 20 minutes.
3.  After mix has cooled stir in candy corn or other candy of choice.  Store in an airtight container.

TIP:  Since I make party mix often, especially during football and basketball season, I reuse my turkey bag.  After coating the mixture and putting into the roasting pan I fold my turkey bag up and place it in the freezer to use again.  I consider my bag "seasoned" and it saves me from having to buy a new one every few weeks.

part mix added to jars for teacher's gift.

Party Mix

Sweet Cornbread

Amazing!  Thank you, The Country Cook, for sharing this recipe.  The honey that you add to this cornbread mixture gives it such a delightfully sweet taste.  This will definitely be the cornbread recipe I use from now on. This, crumbled up in my Red Bean and Cabbage soup,...curtains!  I ate until I was stuffed and still went back for more!  Try it...you'll love it!

PRINTABLE VERSION
What you need:
2 tbsp. honey
1 egg
4 tbsp. butter (melted)
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

How to Make it:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.  Spray an 8x8 baking dish with nonstick spray.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the honey, egg, butter, milk and water.  In a separate bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients.  Give it a gentle stir to combine.  While whisking, slowly add your dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until all are combined.  Batter may be lumpy.  Pour the mixture into the greased pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.

Mixing the wet ingredients

Mixing the dry ingredients

Pour into a greased pan and bake!

Sweet Cornbread

Tater Tot Bake

This has been one heck of the week, so what better foods to indulge in over the weekend than comfort foods?!  Am I right?
On Tuesday afternoon my iphone decided to crash.  JUST FABULOUS!  I hadn't really realized how much I depended on the thing until I no longer had my calender, camera or any contacts.  After HOURS of updating, unloading and re-loading itunes, more updates and a complete restore of my phone, it is once again in working order, minus all info that I had added after my last back-up in August.  :(  I lost so many fabulous pictures of some very delicious yummies I had cooked over the last few weeks, but just hadn't had a chance to blog.  At first I was devastated, but I guess this just just gives me an excuse to recreate the dishes again so that I can share them with all of you! 


Now to the recipe.....
PRINTABLE VERSION
Ingredients:
1 pound lean ground beef or ground pork sausage
1 small onion, chopped
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 pkg frozen veggies, thawed
1 (32 ounce) package tater tots, thawed
1 (8oz) pkg shredded cheddar cheese
salt to taste

Directions:
Saute onion in a large skillet until soft; add beef or sausage and cook until browned. Drain set aside.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Spread soup and veggies in the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Slowly add meat mixture, then top with tater tots and cheddar cheese and season with salt to taste.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 45 minutes, or until casserole is cooked through.

Tater Tot Bake

Jalapeño Cheese Bread

This turned out better than I expected and went great with the Crock Pot Chili and with the Crock Pot Veggie Soup two nights later.  If you aren't a fan of Jalapenos you can always eliminate those and just have a delicious cheese bread.
PRINTABLE VERSION

What you need:

3 cups flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/8 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

4 ounces cheddar cheese, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 1/4 cups milk

3/4 cup sour cream

3 Tablespoons of butter, melted

1 egg, lightly beaten

Sliced Jalapenos, couple of spoon fulls, as desired.

How to make it:

1.  Heat oven to 350.
2.  Grease a 9×5 loaf pan.
3.  In a bowl, whisk together the first 6 ingredients.
4.  Carefully stir in cheese cubes and jalapenos until covered in flour mixture. This will help prevent your cheese sinking to the bottom of your loaf of bread.
5.  In a different bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients.
6.  Fold the wet mixture into the flour and cheese mixture.
7.  Stir until just combined. Do not over stir. Pour and spread the mixture into the loaf pan. Bake for 45-50 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes and then remove from pan. Allow to cool for one hour before slicing and serving.

Jalapeño Cheese Bread

Taste of Home Magazine subscription for $3.99!

For those of you interested, you can go to DISCOUNTMAGS.COM, enter coupon code dealseekingmom at checkout and you can get a one year subscription (8 issues) of Taste of Home for $3.99.  I got mine earlier today. Yay! It was sort of odd because I was just thinking that I needed to renew mine and then found this deal in my facebook news feed.  Let the holiday cooking begin!

So hurry up and hop on over to grab yours.  The code expires on Wednesday 10/12/2011 at 10 p.m.

Thanks, Deal seeking Mom!

Taste of Home Magazine subscription for $3.99!

Crock Pot Chili

Finally got moved into our house last week and FINALLY got our kitchen unpacked this weekend! YAY!  So, of course I cleaned up the crock pot and put her to use.  (isn't it insane how filthy your stuff looks once you unpack it).

Anyway, for my first crock pot meal this Fall I chose to do Chili.  It complemented the frost and cold weather here in Wyoming nicely.

PRINTABLE VERSION
This is what you use:
1 lb ground beef
1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 1/2 tbsp. chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tbsp garlic, minced
1 (15 oz) can chili ready diced tomatoes
1 (15 oz) can tomato sauce
1 (15 oz) can dark red kidney beans
1 (15 oz) can chili beans
1 can water
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Optional toppings: Shredded cheese and sour cream

What you do:
In a skillet brown and crumble ground beef with onion and garlic over medium high heat until meat is completely done and onion is tender.  Drain excess grease and pour beef mixture into crock pot.  Add beans (do not rinse or drain), tomatoes, water, spices and Worcestershire sauce; mix thoroughly.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Cover with lid and cook on low for 4-6 hours (the longer the better). Serve with optional toppings.

Crock Pot Chili

My First Butternut Squash

This weekend I bought my very first Butternut Squash. Now what? Need some yummy recipes, please!

My First Butternut Squash

7-up Biscuits

Simple.  Quick.  Melt in your Mouth.  My kind of biscuit!

I cut these with a knife because I didn't have a biscuit cutter handy, so mine aren't that pretty and were more like drop biscuits than neatly cut out biscuits.  They tasted the same, however, and went well with the Penne with Roasted Asparagus. 

PRINTABLE VERSION

the recipe:

2 cups Bisquick

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup 7-up

1/4 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 450.

Cut sour cream into biscuit mix, add 7-Up. Makes a very soft dough.

Sprinkle additional biscuit mix on board or table and pat dough out. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a 9 inch square pan.  Place cut biscuits in pan and bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

7-up Biscuits

Crescent Dogs

EXHAUSTED!  The hubby has been out of town off and on for two weeks and between that and the working thing, the kid thing, the working out on my lunch break thing, soccer, football, school meetings, closing on our house (yay), and every kid of mine packing around a fundraiser kit, I think it is fair to say I feel like I am LOSING MY MIND!!  Ridiculously Delicious has been getting ridiculously ignored and so while I am finally sitting down to watch the redbox movie I rented two nights ago I am going to share a quick kid-friendly food on here that I fixed this week for my kiddos.  Hot dogs, cheese and crescent rolls...yep it was a hit!

CLICK HERE AND ORDER FROM E's SCHOOL FUNDRAISER AND SAVE ME FROM HAVING TO SPEND $50+ DOLLARS BUYING COOKIE DOUGH SO HE CAN GET A DIME SIZED BOUNCY BALL!!  (I'm being serious, btw). ;)

okay, to the dogs...

PRINTABLE VERSION
what you need:
8 beef hot dogs
4 slices of cheese cut into 6 strips
1 can of crescent rolls (8 oz)


what to do:
1.  Heat over to 375 degrees F.  Slit hot dogs to within 1/2 inch of ends; insert 3 strips of cheese into each slit. 
2.  Separate dough into triangles. Wrap dough triangle around each hot dog. Place on ungreased cookie sheet, cheese side up.

3.  Bake at 375°F. for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown.

thanks pillsbury.com for some great food.

I was feeling EXTREMELY lazy and absent-minded when I made these and didn't cut the slits in the dogs. Instead i just laid half a slice of cheese on the crescent roll and wrapped it along with the hot dog.  I don't think the kids noticed and they still tasted great. 

Crescent Dogs

PENNE WITH ROASTED ASPARAGUS

I am in LOVE with Pinterest and have a board FULL of fabulous foods to cook.  With that said, I am so over this "temporary living" situation we are in and SO ready to have my kitchen back...my cooking utensils...my pampered chef knives....*sigh.


Long story short, we moved to WY from TX in August, we are having a house built and my family of six is in a 3 bedroom company townhouse which is fullY furnished....but for a family of four.  We close on our house Sept. 30 and the movers will be arriving with our stuff Oct 1.  This gal will be getting her cook on come October, so y'all get ready!!


Now, to this incredibly tasty pasta.  Found this Penne on Pinterest and Pinned it.  Thank you Food and Wine for this delicious dinner idea.  The balsamic vinegar, brown sugar and pepper makes such a unique sauce, and paired with the asparagus just makes it incredible.  My mouth is watering just thinking about  it.


PRINTABLE VERSION
What you need:
1 pound asparagus
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh-ground black pepper
1/2 cup PLUS 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1 lb penne
1/4 pound butter, cut into pieces
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese, plus more for serving


PUTTING IT TOGETHER:

1. Heat the oven to 400°. Snap the tough ends off the asparagus and discard them. Cut the spears into 1-inch pieces. Put the asparagus on a baking sheet and toss with the oil and 1/4 teaspoon each of the salt and pepper. Roast until tender, about 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, put the vinegar in a small saucepan. Simmer until 3 tablespoons remain. Stir in the brown sugar and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Remove from the heat.
3. Cook the penne in a large pot of boiling, salted water until just done, about 13 minutes. Drain the pasta and toss with the butter, vinegar, asparagus, Parmesan, and the remaining 1 3/4 teaspoons salt. Serve with additional Parmesan.

PENNE WITH ROASTED ASPARAGUS